Repairing An Interface
by vivi749
Summary: Bit of hurt/comfort between Shaw and Root... Post "Root Path", so spoilers up 'til then. I don't own them, obviously. T mostly for a bit of language, and a few suggestive themes.


Shaw is just on the edge of sleep, with four shots of Jack Daniels numbing the pain of bruises and bullet grazes earned fighting Vigilance, when her phone beeps. She's going to kill Finch.

"What?" she growls, too tired to be polite. She expects to hear Harold apologising, sorry to impose, blah blah blah, but there's a new number and it's time sensitive.

She is understandably a little shocked to hear "_Can you hear me_?" a stilted sentence made from stolen audio clips. She pulls the phone back and stares at it for a second and then puts it back to her ear. The Machine repeats the question.

"Look, you can speak to Root and Harold and Reese and whoever the hell else you want, but leave me the hell out of it. Got that?" Shaw hangs up the phone and tosses it back on the nightstand. She has no intention of ending up like Root with a piece of technology in her body that could affect her ability to control her own life. It's all just a little too Star Trek for her, like those Borg creatures that have no control over anything, no minds of their own anymore. Not gonna happen.

"_Help required. Analog Interface threatened_." This time it comes from the speaker on the phone with no ringtone to warn her. Shaw stares at it. As she reaches out to turn it off, a picture comes up on the screen. Shaw immediately recognises Root, sitting with her knees pulled up and a look of pain on her face, her hand holding the right side of her head where she had surgery less than twelve hours ago.

"_Help required. Analog Interface threatened. Medical attention needed_." Shaw stares at the picture and the sentence connects.

"Oh for fuck sake. You renamed her?" she asks incredulously. "Christ. Where is she?"

A map pops up on her phone. Shaw would recognise that anywhere; many of the targets she took out with Cole were in South America. "She's in Paraguay. So what the hell am I supposed to do about it?"

A beep signals an incoming text, and a schedule of outgoing flights at JFK shows on her phone. There's one leaving in less than an hour. She should be able to make it. Weapons are going to be tricky though. She grabs a ceramic knife and starts getting ready to strap it on when the machine stops her. "_Unnecessary._ _Resources available onsite_."

Shaw furrows her brow. It's not in her nature to leave home without weapons. Still, Root trusts the damn thing and she's still alive. Shaw grabs the duffel she keeps packed just in case, and tosses in some extra first aid supplies and the case of drugs and syringes she keeps ready for emergencies, and she's ready to go. As an afterthought, she tosses in the hands free earpiece that Harold gave her after the last job where she dropped and broke her phone in favour of shooting bad guys.

She catches a taxi; pretty much ignores the cab driver in the front seat who's talking on his Bluetooth in Italian. Thankfully traffic is lighter this time of day (morning, actually, it's almost three am).

She spends the flight brushing up on her Spanish. It's a little rusty but it'll do in a pinch. She isn't sure where Root will be. She tries to get some rest, since it's almost a ten hour flight but she keeps seeing the image of Root hunched over and in pain, and no matter how much Shaw tries she can't get herself to stop worrying that the other woman could be in serious trouble by the time she gets there. If the doctor who operated on her screwed up and contaminated the site Root could end up dead of infection.

When she arrives the Machine makes her phone vibrate and sends a text advising her to head left out of the terminal. A young man with a cheap suit is standing there, and he approaches, informing her in heavily accented English that her rental car is ready to go. Shaw has to admit having the Machine to organise this stuff ahead of time is handy. She thanks the guy and sets her bag in the back seat of a Jeep, a couple years old and not exactly her style but probably the best thing when she's not sure about terrain.

She hooks up the Bluetooth so the Machine can give her directions, with a slight grin when she thinks about the look that would be on Harold's face if he knew she was using his creation as a glorified GPS. She doesn't have to drive far, just over a mile and towards the city limits and finds a small hotel. It's single story, needs an actual metal key to get in. (Well, Shaw doesn't need a key, she just picks the lock.) When she opens the door she's hit with the smell of vomit, not fun but she's smelled worse things. Root, looking paler than usual, is nonetheless on her feet, swaying but holding a gun pointed roughly in Shaw's direction.

"You look like shit," Shaw says, closing the door. Root drops the gun to the nightstand and pretty much collapses onto the bed. Shaw moves to stand next to her and pulls her hair back. "What the… Where the hell did the dressing go?! You were supposed to leave it on!"

"It got wet." Root flinches as Shaw gently palpates the skin surrounding the incision line behind her right ear.

"I specifically told you to keep it dry." Shaw shakes her head in exasperation.

"Well, what the hell was I supposed to do? The guys were chasing me, and I was out of bullets. I had a choice of either getting full of holes or jumping about five metres into a river and hope they didn't follow!" Root's voice actually raises a bit, her tone defensive. Shaw almost can't believe how human she seems. For maybe the first time since they met, Shaw sees a relatively young, very pretty woman instead of a killer.

Her observations are cut short when the other woman pushes her away and hurries to the washroom, and the sounds of retching fill the room. Shaw follows, pulling her med kit from her bag as she goes. Root finally sits back, hitting the flush and then leaning her head back against the wall opposite the toilet, trying to catch her breath.

Shaw pulls out a vial of Gravol and draws it up. "The nausea isn't surprising since he was messing with your ear. This will help."

Root flinches at the sight of the needle and moves away, her eyes on the syringe. "I'm not so good with needles. I wasn't even before Control… she used up about forty of them on me. She called it a roller coaster. I guess she forgot to mention the part about how it goes straight through Hell."

Shaw hands the vial to Root so she can read it and tells her what it is. "Ask the Machine to tell you about the drug if you don't trust me."

Root shakes her head, then aborts the motion and half raises a hand to her head in pain. "It hurts, the sound waves when she speaks to me through it. She stopped when she found out."

"Guess that's why she didn't tell ya I was coming," Shaw says, taking the now forgotten earpiece from her own left ear and placing it in Root's. "Now ask."

Apparently it isn't necessary. Root gets that stare that says she's listening, then looks over at Shaw and the syringe, then swallows hard and nods. Her face flinches a bit at the prick from the needle, but she doesn't move away.

Shaw helps the other woman off the floor and out to the double bed in the middle of the room. "This has to come off," she tells Root, tugging at the bottom of her shirt.

Root, dehydrated and in pain, still manages a smile. "Can't wait to get my clothes off, Sameen?"

Shaw gives her a look, the 'I am not amused' one. Root keeps the smile but slowly manages to remove the shirt. There's a hastily reapplied dressing over the bullet hole in her right upper chest.

Shaw digs through her bag, setting out dressing kits and disposable syringes of saline. Root watches her every move. When Shaw hands her a couple of pills, Root wrinkles her nose a bit. "What are these?"

"Morphine. Trust me, you'll want them by the time I get done cleaning and redressing those wounds." This apparently is enough for Root, or else the Machine is still talking to her, because she swallows them with a drink from a bottle of water on the nightstand.

Shaw has cleaned enough wounds and bullet holes on herself to know that it hurts. Really hurts. Root doesn't move an inch then entire time. She makes some weird faces, but that's it. Shaw can just hear the Machine talking to the other woman, though she can't hear what it's saying. The only time Root does anything other than hiss at Shaw's ministrations is when Shaw first moves on to her ear and pulls it back to get a good look at the incision there. It's a short, sharp, cut off whimper. Shaw doesn't stop what she's doing, knowing that that would only draw out the pain.

There's a thin sheen of sweat on Root's skin when Shaw finishes. Her eyes are wide, the pupils dilated, from both pain and the Morphine. Still, she manages a wan smile. "Thanks," she says. She stands up and nearly falls over.

Shaw grabs her. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Shower… I won't get them wet this time. I promise." Root looks at Shaw. "You could wash my back if you really want to." Despite pain, probable infection, and exhaustion, the woman is still flirting. Un-fucking-believable.

Shaw shakes her head. "Sit on the side of the tub and wash. Otherwise you'll likely fall and crack your head." After a second, she shrugs. "I'll supervise. _If_ you behave."

"But I _like_ misbehaving. It gets you spankings." Root's grin is way past flirty and turning more wicked by the second.

"Yeah, well you'll hafta keep count and get 'em from someone else. Now let's go." Shaw keeps a hand on Root's elbow until they're standing in the bathroom and then lets go so the other woman can remove her clothes. In the back of her head a little voice states its admiration of the view and its disagreement with Shaw's hands off policy. She tells it to shut up.

Shaw turns the tap on but doesn't check the switch for the shower and Root squeals as the shower head turns on and starts spraying them with cold water. "Off off turn it off!" she yelps, dodging away from the spray to keep the water from hitting her freshly changed dressings. Shaw can't help it, she's laughing at both the sounds the other woman is making and at the fact that Root can't really get away. She finally finds the button and changes it so the water is coming out of the faucet. Root is glaring at her for laughing, and swats her with her good side. "You did that on purpose!" she says accusingly.

"Nope, but it was funny as hell," Shaw replies. As a peace offering she grabs the soap and washcloth and does, after all, wash Root's back for her. It isn't as if the other woman can reach it. Once she's finished she hands the other woman the washcloth and steps back and sits on the closed toilet lid.

There's quiet for a bit, the sound of running water the only sound. It's soothing, which really isn't helpful for Shaw since she still has to find a bed somewhere. Probably be a good idea to let Finch know where she is too, before he sends out a search party.

"Hey." Shaw starts a bit, realises she was half asleep and shakes her head to clear it. Root is standing in a towel, head tilted a bit as she scrutinises Shaw. "You look wrecked," she observes.

"No shit, Sherlock," Shaw replies sarcastically. "I've been up for about thirty-four hours."

"Yeah, that makes two of us." Root opens the bathroom door and walks to the bed, about half her normal speed. Clearly the drugs Shaw gave her have kicked in. Shaw follows her and watches her dig through a duffel bag and come up with underwear and…

"Winnie the Pooh pyjamas? Your reputation as a badass is gonna take a serious hit if you wear those." Shaw watches as the other woman calmly pulls the sleepwear on.

"They're comfortable. And I liked the stories when I was a kid. I'm woman enough to wear them without feeling ashamed." Root tries to shrug but winces and stops.

Shaw digs through her med kit and pulls out some antibiotics. "You need to take these for at least a week. Probably ten days would be better." When Root goes to take them Shaw stops her. "Should eat something first. Antibiotics and an empty stomach don't usually mix well."

Root digs through her bag and comes up with an energy bar, much like the one she'd thrown to Shaw… God, was it only yesterday? Shaw shakes her head, reminded again of how long a day it's been. Root is watching, dark eyes assessing.

"You should get some sleep," Root suggests, once she's finished the energy bar and swallowed the pills.

Shaw nods. "Think there's another room available in this place? I maybe shouldn't drive."

Root wrinkles her brow. "You can stay here. The bed is big enough, and I promise I'll behave. There's no extra rooms" she points to the ear piece to indicate how she knows that "and there's no reason for you to put yourself and others at risk trying to drive."

Shaw eyes the bed. "I don't know about that idea."

"Seriously? You really think I'm in any condition to try anything? I can barely move." Root's voice is a mix of frustrated and incredulous, with a hint of something else. Hurt, maybe? As if Shaw not trusting her hurts her feelings.

The bed looks more inviting the more Shaw stares at it. To hell with it. "Fine." With no more said, Shaw grabs her bag and pulls out her pyjamas, matte black, the same as her top, to help with camouflage if necessary. Root watches her change, which Shaw supposes is fair since she saw the other woman naked. Two trips to the washroom with toothbrushes later and they're both back at the bed. Root gets in, lying flat on her back and staring at the ceiling, or more accurately, through it.

Shaw climbs in, and maybe because she's seen some humanity in the other woman, maybe simply because she's too tired to worry about it, she turns her back to Root, faces the door, and closes her eyes. Two breaths later she's out cold.

Root takes longer to fall asleep. Eventually her eyes start to droop, as she allows the Machine's light chatter through the Bluetooth Shaw gave her to send her into much needed rest.

* * *

When Shaw wakes up in the morning, Root is curled up to her as close as she can possibly get, lying on her injured side. Apparently the need for companionship outweighed the pain at some point. Neither mentions it, and Shaw leaves, though not before giving Root stern instructions to take it easy and making sure she has enough antibiotics and painkillers for a week. She leaves the Bluetooth with Root, claiming it's so she can piss Harold off by saying she lost it. Root doesn't argue with this, though Shaw thinks she probably figured out the real reason: Root needs it to talk to her God, and Shaw likes her better when she's happy.


End file.
